Transplant patients can miss out on organs because of bed shortages, top surgeon claims

Save

Save

Kourosh Saeb Parsy has said there was a 'conflict of interest' between the need for intensive care beds and the need to give doctors sufficient time to gain consent, and set up operationsCredit:
Clara Molden for The Telegraph

Follow the author of this article

Follow the topics within this article

Transplant patients are missing out on life saving organs because there are not enough beds to keep dying patients alive long enough to harvest their organs, a leading surgeon has claimed.

Kourosh Saeb Parsy, of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, said there was a 'conflict of interest' between the need for intensive care beds and the need to give doctors sufficient time to gain consent, and set up operations.

Speaking at The Hay Festival, Mr Parsy warned that a 'jumbo jet' worth of people were dying every three months who could be saved if they had access to donor organs.

But he said that getting more people to agree to become organ donors was not the answer. Instead, more resources were...